


Superpowers

by JainaDurron7



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Jackson family - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:41:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27120580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JainaDurron7/pseuds/JainaDurron7
Summary: One night when Percy is telling his and Annabeth's kids bedtime stories, the kids have some tough questions about their mom's powers.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 47





	Superpowers

“Daddy?”

Percy closed the storybook in his lap, pulling the red ribbon between the pages. The kids were well aware he didn’t actually read from the pages, but dyslexia— just another one of his daily battles— wasn’t going to stop him from telling his kids bedtime stories.

It was their nightly routine to pull out an old, tattered volume of Greek ‘myths’, a copy Annabeth’s father had bought years ago and read to her when she was a child. The kids loved it when Percy would pretend to read straight from the book, using silly voices and including plenty of commentary on each god and monster from his personal experience. And he loved watching their little faces light up in awe as his stories unfolded, or when he said something funny or used a funny voice and their faces would break out in toothy grins and contagious laughter… 

Tonight, he’d done his best rendition of their grandfather Poseidon battling Typhon in the Hudson River alongside an army of Cyclopes led by Uncle Tyson in the Battle of Manhattan.

He looked to the small twin bed where Beck and Chase sat atop their sister Sophie, dressed in pajamas and ready for bed. The voice belonged to his eldest, Sophie, the young girl tucked in her sheets, owl comforter pulled up to her chin. She looked up to him through dark lashes. She had fierce, gray eyes like her mother, but the storm usually animating her irises was now subdued, and Percy could sense something was bothering her.

He reached out to brush her mop of dark curls out of her face, asking, “What’s up, Sophiotaurus?”

Her eyes darted away. “Why doesn’t Mommy have demigod powers like you?”

That captured his attention. He tried not to let his alarm show as he asked her, “What do you mean? Mommy has demigod powers too.”

Sophie shook her head almost imperceptibly. She averted her gaze from Percy’s, instead focusing on the loose threads in her blankets. “Being smart isn’t a power.”

Both of her younger brothers blinked at her, then looked back to him.

For a moment, Percy panicked, unease swimming in his gut. For lack of a better way of thinking about it, he understood where his daughter was coming from, what she was thinking. Regardless of the greater parameters of an Athena child’s mind or how smarter or wiser they were than the most knowledgeable mortal, Percy knew that wasn’t something kids understood. Not in this age of superhero movies and cartoons.

No, Sophie was a child with a simple mind who was comparing her dad’s water powers and abilities to talk to fish and make big splashes at the pool to her mom who …

Percy understood. But how did he explain that to his seven-year-old?

Seven-year-olds don’t care about whether their mommy is as smart as Einstein or wiser than any political leader. They don’t care about IQ or how fast their mom can solve a Rubik's Cube. They want to see what someone could do. Strength, speed, toughness. That’s what little kids cared about. They like heroes with visible superpowers they can only play pretend having.

And, if Percy were being honest, he considered how disappointed he likely would have been if, in his first weeks at Camp Half-Blood, he’d been claimed by Athena and told his powers would include being smart and being good at solving math problems.

“Well, Mom isn’t just smart, you know. She has wisdom, too.”

Before he could go on, Sophie peeked out from under her blankets and asked, “What’s wisdom?”

“Wisdom is … being good at solving problems. It’s knowing what to do in any situation, knowing how to make the right choice. When we went on all our quests as kids, we needed Mom a lot because she would always come up with a good plan to get us out of trouble. I never would have succeeded in any of my quests without her.”

This time, it was four-year-old Chase’s gaze which dimmed in disappointment. He shook his head, whispering, “That not a supa-powa.”

Oh, gods. Athena was going to kill him!

Besides that, it hurt Percy to hear this. He knew the kids loved their mom and that this wasn’t about finding value in Annabeth or something to love about her. It was an honest question. Sophie was just a kid with questions. Still, Percy was glad Annabeth was still at work.

Then, an idea occurred to him, and he grinned at the children. “Hey, Soph, Chase. You want another story tonight? Have I ever told you about the quest Mommy had to go on by herself?”

Sophie blinked, already unfolding from her tight cocoon. She shook her head and her brown curls fell back over her eyes. “But demigods should never go on quests alone.”

Percy patted her mattress, prompting his daughter to sit beside her brothers. “No, you shouldn’t. But this was a very special quest, and Grandma Athena wanted Mom to go by herself.”

“But why would Grandma Thena make her do that?”

“Because this was a super special quest. A really dangerous one meant  _ only  _ for kids of Athena.”

Both Chase’s and Sophie’s eyes widened like approaching saucers.

“See, Grandma Athena had sent lots of her kids to complete this quest, but all of them failed. Every time.”

“It must have been super dangerous.”

Percy nodded. “It was. And really scary. It was made to be super scary for kids of Athena.”

Sophie gripped her blankets, holding them to her chest.

“You know how Grandma Athena’s statue stands on Half-Blood Hill at camp. Well, it wasn’t always there. A long, long, long time ago, someone had taken it and hidden it, and Athena wanted one of her kids to retrieve it and bring it to camp.”

“And Mommy did.”

“Yes, she did. But she had to get it first. And it was really scary. She had to follow a bunch of spiders underground.”

The four-year-old boy shivered. “Mommy hates spidows!”

“Yeah, and she had to follow a bunch of them. And she followed them deep underground. But the cavern underground that she was in collapsed and she fell and hurt herself. She hurt her ankle.” He propped his foot on Sophie’s bed to point and show then. “So it was harder for her to walk the rest of the way. But she made herself a cast out of bubble wrap and kept walking and following the spiders.

“Then, she got to a chasm she had to cross, and she had to make herself a bridge to cross to the other side. All she had to make a bridge were two little pieces of wood and some kite string. But she made a little bridge for herself with the kite string to keep the wood pieces together, and she made it to a kind of lair on the other side.”

“And Grandma’s statue was in the lair?”

“It was, but Mom couldn’t just go to the statue and take it. It was being guarded.”

He waited. One second. Two.

Drawing on her lip between her teeth, Sophie asked, “Who was guarding it?”

One more second. “One of Grandma’s greatest enemies: Arachne.”

Little Chase’s jaw fell open. “She’s a big spidow.”

“A big spider,” Percy agreed. “With long black hair, hairy legs, dark, beady eyes, and pointy teeth. A giant spider.”

“Mommy must have been really scared.”

For a moment, all Percy could do was nod as he recalled the paralyzing fear Annabeth had been battling when he and the rest of the  _ Argo II _ crew had found her, the terrible nightmares she still had today of her once captor. “Yeah, I think she was. But she was also brave. She had to be. Arachne had the Athena Parthenos caught up in her webs, trapped in her lair. So, Mom came up with a big idea.”

“What did she do?”

“Do you remember the story of Arachne and Athena?”

Sophie nodded. “They both thought they were better at weaving, so they had a competition.”

“Well, Arachne never changed.”  _ And neither did your grandma, for that matter. _ “And she thought she was the greatest weaver ever. So, Mom proposed a challenge. She had a computer with her full of Daedalus’s blueprints, and she opened one up of a design. She showed it to Arachne and told her, ‘I bet you can’t make this.’ And Arachne was furious! She said, ‘Of course, I can! I’m an even better weaver than Athena!’”

Sophie gasped. “That’s not a good thing to say about Grandma.”

Now, Percy did laugh. “No, it most certainly isn’t. But, anyway, Arachne was sure she could make this design and she could do it flawlessly. So, Mom told her to make the design but way bigger. So, Arachne carefully started to take off the webs from Grandma’s statue and started to make Mom’s design. She spent hours making it, taking all the silk she had to weave it perfectly to prove herself.

“And then, when she was done, Mom looked at it to inspect it, make sure it was as perfect as Arachne said she could make it. She looked at every side, outside, inside. Then, she stopped. And she pointed inside of it and said to Arachne, ‘You made a mistake’. And Arachne cried, ‘Impossible!’ And Mommy said, ‘No, look. Just in there. You left some loose threads. It was almost perfect.’ Arachne didn’t want to show off anything but her best work, so she hurried to see what she had to fix.”

Percy reached behind him for a small bin full of different toys and he dug into it until his fingers found what they were looking for. He pulled out a Chinese finger trap and showed it to Sophie.

“’In there,’ Mom told her, and Arachne bent down to look inside.” He put one index finger through one side of the toy, just the tip of his finger. “Mom told her, ‘Don’t you see it? Get in closer!’ So, Arachne crawled in closer. ‘Closer!’ Mom told her.” He shoved his index fingers into both ends, pausing. “But there was no loose thread. And Arachne didn’t know until she tried to crawl out.” He tugged his fingers to opposite sides. “But she was stuck.”

Sophie and Chase both grinned. “Mommy trapped her!”

“She did,” Percy nodded. “And Mommy sent her back to the depths of Tartarus.”

“Mommy really did all that?”

Percy pretended to be affronted. “Why? You think I’d make all that up? You’ve seen Mommy fight. She did all of that. By.  _ Herself. _ ”

“No way!”

“Of course, Mom’s fought a lot of scary monsters and done some pretty amazing stuff.”

“Tell us another one!”

“Maybe another night. But now, it’s already past your guys’ bedtime.”

“But I want another story about Mommy!”

“Not tonight, kiddo.” He kissed her goodnight, tucked her back into bed, then took Chase and Beck into his arms to bring them to their own room. On his way out, he stopped in the doorway, one hand on the light switch. “Maybe, next time, I’ll tell you about how Mommy held up the sky.”


End file.
